Severed product switching means



1963 R. KINNICUTT, JR.. ETAL SEVERED PRODUCT SWITCHING MEANS 3Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Feb. 1, 1961 United States Patent 3 O chusettsFiled Feb. 1, 1961, Ser. No. 86,387 1 Claim. (Cl. 83-105) This inventionrelates to switching means, and more particularly to apparatus arranged.to cause the rolled product of a rolling mill selectively to enter anyone of a number of paths.

In the operation of a rolling mill, it is quite often necessary to causean extremely long piece of product to be divided and passed to aplurality of disposal apparatus. In the rolling of rod, for instance,the rod leaves the last roll stand in extremely long lengths which aremuch greater than could be accommodated by an ordinary reel.

t is also sometimes necessary to produce coils of rod of a weight lessthan the weight of the billet or bar from which the rod was rolled. Forthese reasons it becomes necessary to sometimes cut the rod into shorterlengths and to cause each length to pass to a specific reel. It isnormal practice to coil the entire product of a mill by the use ofseveral reels, but it is necessary that the lengths of the rod pass toone reel after another in succession and that a length be introducedagain to the first reel of a series only after the other reel of theseries have been successively used. By that time the first reel hascoiled its length of rod, has discharged it, and is ready for anotherrod. Apparatus has been conceived and built in the past to directdivided lengths of rod to various reels but, as the speed of rollingmills increased, it becomes more and more diificult to so direct therod. Attempts to'solve the problem have been very complicated andexpensive. These and other difiiculties experienced wit-h the prior artdevices have been obviated in a novel manner by the present invention.

It is, therefore, an outstanding object of the invention to provide aswitching means for reliably introducing successive lengths of productof the rolling mill into various paths.

Another object of this invention is the provision of a switching meansconsisting of a shear and switch so related as to give accurateplacement and introduction of successive lengths of rolling mill productto desired paths.

A further object of the present invention is the provision of a switchof simple and rugged construction for introducing the front ends oflengths of rolling mill product into desired paths.

It is another object of the instant invention to provide a switch ofsimple and rugged construction which may be readily manufactured fromeasily obtainable materials and any standard manufacturing processes.

Another object of the invention is the provision of apparat-us forcutting rapidly moving lengths of material and directing the parts intodesired paths.

With these and other objects in view, as will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art, the invention resides in the combination of partsset forth in the specification and covered by the claim appended hereto.

The character of the invention, however, may be best understood byreference to one of its structural forms, as illustrated by theaccompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a portion of the rolling mill incorporating theprinciples of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is an elevational view of the switch of the present inventiontaken along the line IIII of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a vertical sectional view of the apparatus taken along theline IIIIII of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a horizontal sectional view of the switch taken along the lineIV1V of FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a sectional view of a portion of the invention taken along theline V-V of FIG. '2; and

FIG. 6 is an enlarged elevational view of a portion of the switch takenalong the line VIVI of FIG. 4.

Referring to FIG. 1, wherein are best shown the general features of theinvention, a switch means, indicated generally by the reference numeral10, is shown in use in conjunction with other elements of a rod rollingmill. For instance, a conduit 11 adapted to carry rod from the laststand of a rolling mill approaches one side of the apparatus. At theother side of the apparatus switch pipes 12 lead to intermediate pipes13 which lead to another set of pipes 14. The pipes 14 terminate in ahousing 15 which carries the entrance end of pipes 16, 17, 18 and 1%which lead through a cooling apparatus 21, 22, 23 and 24, respectively,to reels 25, 26, 27, and 28. The switching means 10 consists generallyof a shear 29 and a switch 31. Referring to FIG. 3, it can be seen thatthe conduit 11 terminates close to the blades 32 and 33 which aremounted on knife holders 34 and 35 respectively, of the shear 29.

Referring to FIGS. .2, 3 and 4, which show the details of the switch 31,it would seem that the switch consists of a housing 36 mounted on a base37. The housing con sists of a front wall 38 land a rear wall 39 joinedby a curved peripheral Wall -41. Extending between the two walls atequally spaced points close to their peripheries are four shafts 4-2 onwhich are rotatably mounted wheels On either side of each wheel 43 aremounted smaller wheels 44. Held within one roup of smaller wheels is aninternal disk 4-5, while a similar internal disk 46 is held within theother group of four smaller wheels. The large wheels 43 lie in the spacebetween the two internal disks which are held in spaced parallelrelationship. Held between the disks, which are provided with circularcentral apertures, is a switch body 47 having two bores extendingtherethrough, one bore having a sleeve 48 and the other bore having asleeve 49. Fastened to the outwardlyfacing surface of the internal diskis a ring 5 1 which extends through and occupies the entire area of theaperture in the rear wall 39 of the housing. Fastened to the outwardlyfacing surface of the internal disk 46 is a horn 52 which is generallyfunnel-shaped and is provided with a central flat wall 53 which dividesthe horn into an upper passage 54 aligned with the sleeve 48 and a lowerpassage 55 aligned with the sleeve 49. The wall 53 extends well Withinthe area subtended by the drums 34 and 35 of the shear 29 and the wallsof the horn are cut back with a sweeping curve from the end of that wallto avoid the path of the knives 32 and 33 as the shear rotates. The lineof rotation of the internal disks 45 and 46 with the sleeves 48 and 49and the horn 52 is an axis parallel to and midway between the axes ofthe sleeves 48 and 49. As the apparatus is arranged in the figures, thepassage 55 and the sleeve 49 are aligned generally with the pathoccupied by a rod as it goes through the shear when the shear knives areaway from cutting position, i.c., with the rod 56 Occupying the lowerposition resting on the lower surface of the conduit 11. Immediatelyafter the rod is cut, the new front end will be supponted in an upperposition by the lower blade 33 and occupies the solid line positionwherein it is aligned with the passage 54 and the sleeve 48. Alsomounted on the ring 51 is a bracket 57 which supports the adjacent endsof the pipes 12.

The switch body 47 is formed with a pinion 58 whose teeth are engaged bythe teeth of a horizontal rack 59 which is fastened to the piston of ahorizontally-arranged, pneumatic linear actuator 61. The housing 36 isprovided with an elongated chamber 62 adapted to receive and enclose theend of the rack 59 in the extreme outer position of the actuator 61. p

In FIG. 5 is shown a somewhat enlarged view of the section of one of theareas in the housing containing a shaft 42, particularly showing themethod of lubrication and also the manner in which the rack 5'9 rests ona wheel 63 and is provided with grooves on its under side which areengaged by two large wheels 64 and 65. The small wheels 44 engage theinternal disks 46 and and between these disks lies the switch body 47with its pinion 58 engaging the teeth on the rack 59.

FIG. 6 shows particularly well the appearance of the horn 52 which isintegral with a disk '66 bolted to the internal disk 46. It is evidentin this view that the cross section of the horn is generally rectangularwith the long direction arranged vertically and with the wall 53extending across its central portion.

The operation of the apparatus will now be readily understood in viewor" the above description. A length of rod which has been finished inthe rolling mill arrives at the apparatus through the conduit #11, thepassing of its front end having been duly noted down-stream by suitablesignal flag which started the shear 29 rotating. The presence of thefront end of the rod 56 is duly noted by a photoelectric cell 67 whichis located beside the shear and which is directed toward the end of theconduit 11. Since the blades of the shear have not yet entered theneighborhood of the rod, the rod rests on the lower surface of theconduit 11 and, therefore, passes through the shear into the lowerpassage -of the horn 52 of the switch 31. It'passes then through thesleeve 49 onto one of the pipes 12. It should be noted that the upstreamend of the pipes 12 are arranged vertically, one above the other, so asto align with sleeves 4? and 49. At the other end, the pipes 12 apespread apart and in the same horizontal plane and are aligned withparallel, generally-horizontal pipes 13. The pipes 13 are pivotallymovable about their upstream ends and are moved by a hydraulic actuatorin the usual way. In the uppermost position the pipes 13 are alignedwith upper pipes 14, while in a lower position are aligned with a croppipe. Each of the two upper pipes 14 is rnovable vertically by asuitable actuator and is able to direct rod to one of the pipes 16 and18 or 17 and 19 leading to the reels 25 and 27 or 26 and 28. While thefront end of the rod 56 is moving through the passage 55, the shearcontinues to rotate and, eventually, the blades 32 and 33 engage and outthe I'Od. This first cut would normally be a short length or crop. Now,the lower blade 3-3, in reaching cutting position, presses against theunderside of the rod 56 and passes it upwardly so that, when the cut iscompleted, the front end of the fol-lowing length is on the level shownin solid lines, i.e., in alignment with the upper passage 54 of the horn52. The rod, therefore, passes through the passage 54 and the sleeve 48to the uppermost of the pipes 12 and, as viewed in looking from theshear toward the reels, it is switched to the left. If the rod 56 isextremely long, it may be cut into several lengths and between cuts thelinear actuator 61 is set in motion to act through the rack 59 to rotatethe Whole internal apparatus including the horn 52 and the sleeves 48and 49. Once the first out has been completed, the operator (or, in somecases, automatic mechanism) will cause the linear actuator 61 to rotatethe horn so that the passage 55 is uppermost and the passage 54 is inthe low position. Since the blade 33 is out of the way by the time thereversal is completed, the rod is free to move downwardly with itspassage and, so, it occupies the dotted line position in FIG. 3. thenext piece enters the passage 55 which is now in the uppermost positionand, after the rod is well introduced into the system through theswitch, the switch is again reversed so that the passage 54 is uppermostagain. Usually, a cut will be made of a short length at the front and ashort length at the rear of the rod. These are known as crops and it isdesirable to dispose of them. For that reason, the pipes 14 are inclineddownwardly to align themselves with the crop pipe Whch underlies pipes14 and the cropped front end goes through the crop pipe for disposal.The rest of the lengths of rod, however, are suitably directed towardthe pipes 216, 17, 13 and 19 and toward their respective reels bymanipulating the pipes 13 and 14. The operation of the shear, switch,and pipes may take place by use of photoelectric cells and otherautomatic apparatus, or it may be done by hand. It can be seen, however,that the use of the reels may take place in a predetermined sequentialorder with positive, accurate switching and with no danger of a rodbeing introduced into a pipe which already contains a rod or into a reelwhich has not yet discharged its coil.

It is obvious that minor changes may be made in the form andconstruction of the invention without departing from the material spiritthereof. It is not, however, desired to confine the invention to theexact form herein shown and described, but it is desired to include allsuch as properly come within the scope claimed.

The invention having been thus described, what is claimed as new anddesired to secure by Letters Patent is:

Apparatus for shearing into a plurality of separate pieces an elongatedproduct running at high speed and for switching said pieces alternatelyinto separate paths comprising, a conduit for delivering said elongatedproduct along a pass line, a switch body having two spaced parallelbores extending therethrou'gh, means normally positioning said body withsaid bores one above the other, means mounting said body for rotationabout an axis above and 7 parallel to the extension of said pass lineand longitudinally spaced from the delivery end of said conduit, 21 pairof funnel-shaped guides attached to said body and diverging from theinput ends of said bores toward said conduit, said guides having acommon horizontal wall in line with said axis of rotation, a rotaryshear positioned between said conduit and said tubular guides forsevering said product, the lower blade of said shear after a cut is madeelevating the free end of said product to a position above saidhorizontal wall and into the upper one of said guides,

and means for rotating said body and said guides through first in onedirection of rotation and then in the opposite direction after eachsuccessive cut of said product by said shear to deliver the free cut endof'said product to the upper one of said guides and running the productafter said 180 rotation through the lower one of said guides and saidbores.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS510,451 Sweet Dec. 12, 1893 763,307 Mills June 21, 1904 2,607,469Russell Aug. 19, 1952 2,666,534 Pietsch Ian. 19, 1954 2,711,809 OKeefeet al June 28, 1955 When the next cut is made, of course,

